6 Games That Prove Musicians Should Stick To Music

Glu Mobile, the people that brought you the monstrosity that is Kim Kardashian’s mobile game, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, announced yesterday that they will be releasing a similar mobile game centred around Taylor Swift (and, presumably, her squad) later this year. In the game, you play as Taylor Swift, flipping through a virtual address book trying to hunt down major celebrities to perform with you at that night’s gig, while fending off interruptions from your shouty Scottish boyfriend and Haim trying to drag you down the pub. Even as you approach the end of the tour, and thus the game, Kanye West repeatedly appears and doesn’t let you finish. At least, that’s what we hope the game is. And though our interpretation of the forthcoming Taylor Swift video game does sound awesome, the finished product most certainly will not be because video game starring musicians simply do not work.

To support this claim, we have assembled this list of video games starring musicians that simply do not work. Not that Glu Mobile cares. All they need is one tweet from Taylor Swift and they’ll be swimming in money. But once the novelty of the Taylor Swift mobile game wears off, we’ll be right here waiting to tell you, “Told you so.”

1. Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker

In Sega disaster, you are Michael Jackson trapped in a maze full of crazed fans you have to fight off to save kidnapped kids from a villain named Mr. Big (who is not Chris Noth). It may have seemed harmless in 1988, but with what we know now, are we really supposed to assume that Michael is saving these kids…?

2. Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style

A video game that lets players play as martial arts master versions of Ghostface Killah and Old Dirty Bastard should work in theory, but instead the result was a buggy and soulless game that can’t be forgotten fast enough.

3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Apparently, Frankie Goes To Hollywood did more than “Relax”. They also released a video game in 1985. Their approach may have been too relaxed because this game is garbage.

4. Snoop Dogg’s Way of the Dogg

Snoop Dogg is actually pretty good as a the Mr. Miyagi figure in the this Karate Kid in the Hood video game. Unfortunately, no one seemed to notice that even as early as 2013–when this game was released–everyone was already totally over quicktime events, which is the bulk of the game’s gameplay. Shame a serious gamer like Snoop Dogg didn’t step in to protect his brand.

5. Devo Presents: Adventures of the Smart Patrol

The band name Devo comes “from their concept of ‘de-evolution‘ — the idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind has actually begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society.” They apparently applied the same philosophy to their video game as it had no logic or order and nearly regressed the video game industry.

6. 50 Cent: Bulletproof

In a word: unplayable.

Hopefully Taylor Swift realizes that it’s not too late to pull out of her games venture. Because if these games are any indication, Taylor’s in for a rough ride.